Book Review of The Soul's Slow Ripening, by Christine Valters Paintner

Review of The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred, by Christine Valters Paintner

Reviewed by Kerry Greenhill
June 8, 2022 

I have not yet been to Ireland, but I have long been enchanted by the imagery of lush green landscapes, and I am drawn to the theological themes and poetry of Celtic Christian prayers and practices. So I came to Christine Valters Paintner’s book, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred, with an expectation of delight, spiritual resonance, and familiarity. I found all three, but I was also pleasantly surprised by the uniqueness of some of the Celtic practices she describes.

The practices included here are Thresholds, Dreaming, Peregrinatio and Seeking Your Place of Resurrection, Blessing Each Moment, Soul Friendship, Encircling, Walking the Rounds, Learning by Heart, Solitude and Silence, Seasonal Cycles, Landscape as Theophany, and Three Essential Things. Some of these I have learned about, studied, and practiced, in spiritual formation classes or out of personal interest. Others, such as Walking the Rounds, were quite new to me, and fascinating.

I found myself in a hurry to try to take it all in, to learn about everything as quickly as possible. But this is a book to savor, to read slowly and with intention, pausing frequently to reflect, to digest, to engage the practices suggested in each chapter. Paintner has written an introduction to these specific Celtic Christian practices that has the contemplative spirit of invitation and gentle attentiveness one might experience in spiritual direction, or on a retreat. She provides intellectual and historical background, personal experience and anecdotes, and guidance in how to engage the practices in creative and embodied ways.

Paintner also engages each practice through the lens of discernment, “a way of listening to our lives and the world around us and responding to the invitations that call us into deeper alignment with our soul’s deep desires and the desires God has for us” (p. xvii). As someone who seems to be always in discernment about whether I am “on the right path,” or living in the center of God’s desires for my life, I think I will be rereading these chapters over time, to let the poetry and deep spiritual insight wash over me again when I need to be reminded of the grace and beauty of the journey.

I especially recommend The Soul’s Slow Ripening for lovers of Celtic Christianity, practitioners of Christian spiritual formation, contemplatives, people seeking to discern some question or choice in life, and fans of Irish history and culture, but would not hesitate to lend this out to someone with no experience in any of these subjects, who was merely curious or intrigued by the title or cover. Well worth the time to read.

You can find an excerpt from the book here: https://mikemorrell.org/2022/01/the-souls-slow-ripening-christine-valters-paintner/ 

And the book can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Souls-Slow-Ripening-Practices-Seeking/dp/1932057102/

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

 

Easier not to

The new year is off to a bit of a bumpy start for me. No big crises or drama, just the end of a rushed vacation back east to see family followed by a heavy work week with grantwriting and back pain and motivation issues. Nothing worthy of complaining about when I know so many people dealing with major illness, unemployment, bankruptcy, and so on, but enough to make me want to go back to bed for a week and start 2012 over again.

Like millions of others, I have lots of good intentions about what I will do differently this year, though in recent years my cynicism has led me to limit my formal resolutions to a very short list of achievable goals. There's something about a threshold moment like putting up a new calendar (or graduating from college, or moving, or getting married) that makes the future seem so open and full of possibility, as though all the past mistakes have been erased and we can really start from scratch in deciding who we will be and how we will live.  And the Christian faith affirms this sense of possibility, of redemption and new beginnings, of the time when God begins to "do a new thing" in us.

But then, after a few weeks or days or hours of being on our best behavior, somehow we slip back into those old habits or routines. Despite our best intentions, we behave as though nothing had changed. We sleep in instead of meditating, watch TV instead of exercising, ignore the reminder taped to our desk to "Write Every Day!!" because conveniently, we didn't tell anyone about it and therefore we are only accountable to ourselves and God, and fortunately, God is very forgiving. (Or is that just me? No? )  Christians (starting around the 2nd century, with Bishop Irenaeus) have called this tendency to mess up repeatedly "original sin," but I prefer a more scientific explanation.

Inertia.

A body at rest tends to remain at rest; a body in motion tends to remain in motion - and resists change in the direction of its motion proportional to its mass.  Just one of many lessons from my high school physics class that have proven to be useful in justifying phenomena only remotely related to actual physics (see also Entropy, which explains why my workspace tends to get messier with time rather than neater).

Change is not easy, whether we are trying to change our diet, exercise habits (or lack thereof), addictive behavior, ways of relating to family members, how we think about God, or a tendency to leave dirty dishes in the sink. It takes energy, intention, and paying attention; and it takes a willingness to try, fail, and try again.  One of my coworkers in my non-profit job has a framed print on the wall of her office that reminds us all, "Change - of any kind - requires courage."

It's just easier not to. It's easier to let inertia have its way with us, to be carried along by the momentum of our lives and pretend we have no say in the matter. It's easier to believe God has decided all that has happened and all that will happen, that no matter how hard we try, we are doomed or destined to be who we have always been.  Fatalism can be awfully handy at times.  But I don't think that's what Jesus the Christ asked of those who would follow him.

Whether you take the Gospels symbolically or literally, the stories about Jesus reflect over and over a man who chose the desires and purposes of God over the expectations of the world. (I know lots of people believe that Jesus' life was entirely predestined and that his crucifixion was necessary to redeem people from their sins; I have a different understanding that perhaps I'll go into another time.) And again and again, Jesus invited people to choose: to follow him, or to stay on their original path. To take up their cross, or take the easy way out. To love their neighbor, or to let the religious leaders of the day tell them it was okay to see some people as less than human, undeserving of justice or compassion.

I don't know about you, but to me, choice implies the ability to actually choose, to say yes or no, to accept or refuse the invitation to a radically different way of being in relationship with God and with other people - with all of creation - than most people had previously imagined.  In reading the Bible, I can almost hear Jesus saying, "I know it's easier not to. But this is the only Way, the only Life, the only Truth that makes sense to me in light of God's amazing, all-embracing love. Join me. Easier has nothing to do with it."

So I will try. And probably fail. But with God's grace, I will keep trying. To honor my body through exercise and healthy eating choices. To honor my relationships with family and friends by being intentional about staying in touch.  To honor other people as God's children by looking them in the eye, listening to their story, focusing on relationship more than task or result. To honor the earth as God's creation by driving less, eating more plant-based foods, reducing waste, accumulating less. To honor the gifts and passions God has given me by writing every week -  here and for worship and for publication (writing daily is still a step or two away!) - and finding other ways to play and create things of joy and beauty.

Today is Epiphany, the celebration of the Wise Ones from the east arriving in Bethlehem to honor Jesus with their gifts, and of the star that led them in their journey, from distant cultures across inhospitable terrain, to see firsthand the young child who they believed was destined to become a king.  It would have been easier not to. Nobody would have blamed them if inertia had gotten the best of them. It would have been easier to stay home, to give thanks for this new life in their prayers instead of with their bodies, to stay far away from the paranoia of King Herod and the fears of all Jerusalem about the rumors of a baby who would change everything.

But easier had nothing to do with it.